V.I. Warshawski 04 - Bitter Medicine (32 page)

“Vic! I’ve been debating the last half hour whether I should ring Murray Ryerson. Are you all right?”

“Yes, yes. I’m fine. I didn’t get done at the hospital until close to four this morning, so I checked into a hotel out here. I’ll be back later this afternoon. Are you free this evening? Can we go over some papers?”

We agreed to meet at the Dortmunder again at seven. I phoned my answering service next. Murray Ryerson and

Detective Rawlings both wanted to talk to me. I tried Murray first.

“So what have you got?” he greeted me, after I’d waited on hold for five minutes.

“I won’t know until after Lotty’s looked at it tonight We’re meeting at the Dortmunder for supper and powwow-want to join us?”

“Til try… Hang on a second.”

As he put me back on hold, a knock on the door heralded my breakfast. I hadn’t planned ahead and was still naked. I looked around me dubiously-the only clothes I had were what I’d worn yesterday. I put on the skirt to the suit and wrapped a towel around my top and let in the waiter.

When I got back to the phone, Murray was bellowing into it. “Jesus, Vic-I thought maybe a mysterious foreigner had given you knockout drops. I didn’t even know where to send the marines.”

“Schaumburg. Any luck on your end?”

“It would help if I knew what I was looking for. If your pal Burgoyne is a good old buddy of Tom Coulter’s in the public-health arena, there isn’t any evidence I can turn up on it. No one in Coulter’s office seems to have heard of Burgoyne. Coulter’s wife doesn’t know him. In fact she was pretty shirty on the question of her husband’s friends. Seems he goes drinking six nights out of five with his boss, Bert McMichaels. The two of them go back aways.”

“Who’s McMichaels?” I asked as sharply as I could through a mouthful of berries.

“I just told you, Warshawski: Tom Coulter’s boss. Schaumburg addling your brains? And don’t eat while you talk, or vice versa-didn’t your mother teach you the basics?”

“Yeah, yeah.” I hastily washed the berries down with a mouthful of coffee. “I mean, what’s McMichael’s position?”

“Oh.” Murray stopped a moment to consult his notes.

“He’s deputy director of health regulation. Reports to Dr. Strachey, who heads up the Human Resources part of the Department.”

“And how do these guys get their jobs? They’re not elected, are they?”

“You want Civics One-oh-one? No, they’re appointed by the governor and approved by the legislature.”

“I see.” I studied the rest of the fruit. I had an inkling of an idea. It would mean going back to Friendship tonight to check out… unless… let your fingers do the walking,

“You still there?” Murray demanded.

“Yeah, and the unit charges are ticking away. Look, someone recommends these people, right? I mean, does Big Jim call the state medical society and say, tell me who your ten best people in public health are and I’ll pick one to be king of Human Resources?”

“Get real, Warshawski. This here is Illinois. Some hack down in Springfield who’s on the public-health committee, or whatever legislative name they give it, has a pal who wants a job and he-” He broke off, suddenly. “I see. The lumbering Swede catches up finally with the nimble-brained Polack. I’ll try to see you tonight at Dortmunder’s.”

He hung up without another word. I smiled sardonically and dialed the Sixth Area Headquarters. Rawlings came on the line immediately.

“Where in hell are you, Warshawski? I thought I told you not to leave the jurisdiction.”

“Sorry-I went to the burbs last night and stayed up too late to drive home. Didn’t want one of your pals in traffic patrol prying my body away from a lamppost on the Kennedy. What’s up?”

“Just thought you’d like to know, Ms. Warshawski, that since your gun hasn’t been fired lately we don’t think you used it to kill Fabiano Hernandez.”

“What a relief. It’s been keeping me up nights. Anything on Sergio?”

He made a disgusted noise. “He’s got an airtight alibi. Not that that means anything. But we took his little place on Washtenaw apart. Found enough crack to maybe get a judge to agree he ain’t a model citizen, but no Smith and Wesson.”

I remembered the little place on Washtenaw all too clearly. I wished I’d been able to help strip it and said as much to Rawlings.

“I didn’t realize I had anything to be thankful for until just now. Anyway, come by the division and pick up your gun if you want it. And in the future, if you’re spending a night away from Chicago, I want to know about it.”

“You mean, forever and ever? Like if I go to England in the spring, you want to know about-” The receiver slammed in my ear before I could finish the sentence. Some people, nothing you do can please them.

I smelled the shirt I’d been wearing yesterday. If I put it back on again I wasn’t sure I’d be able to stand the drive home. Marriott’s little guide to hotel services listed a “Galleria of shops.” I chose a sportswear store and explained my predicament.

“Could you send someone up with two or three tops- medium, or size twelve? Red, yellow, white-anything in those colors?”

They were happy to help out. Half an hour later, dressed in a white ribbed T-shirt and black jeans, with my smelly business clothes stuffed into a laundry bag, I settled the bill and headed back to the city. My night’s rest and all the little extras came to over two hundred dollars. Thank goodness for the box factory in Downers Grove-something was going to have to come in before the American Express bill arrived.

My first stop in town was to pick up my gun at the police station. Rawlings wasn’t in, but he’d left word with the desk sergeant. I had to show three pieces of identification and sign a couple of receipts, which suited me fine, I didn’t want anyone and his dog Rover able to pick up a handgun at whim. Especially my handgun. Although someone apparently had-or at least its twin brother.

I was still wearing high heels and pantyhose under my new jeans, so I stopped at home to change into running shoes. I took a few extra minutes to arrange for a cleaning service to come straighten out my place, then headed downtown-I couldn’t concentrate on my work in the middle of such squalor.

My office faces east. It was relatively cool in the midafternoon heat. Instead of turning on the air conditioner, I opened a window to let in the city air and smells. The clattering roar of the Wabash L underneath made a pleasant backdrop for my work. Before getting started, I dialed the number I’d copied from Alan Humphries’s file on Consuelo. No answer.

I pulled the papers from the portfolio briefcase and divided them into neat piles: the medical material for Lotty, the financial and administrative documents for me. As I sorted, I sang snatches of “Whistle While You Work,” which filled me with the happy industry of Snow White and her pals.

I went through Peter’s employment agreement first, since that was only a few pages long. A base salary of $150,000 a year to join Friendship as their top obstetrics man. Plus two percent of all profits accruing from the hospital’s obstetrics service. Plus profit sharing from the Schaumburg facility as a whole-at a rate to vary based on his own contributions to the hospital and the total number of staff. And, as a sweetener, a little chunk of change from the national franchise. Nice work if you could get it.

The letter was signed by Garth Hollingshead, chairman of the national company. In a concluding paragraph, Hollingshead commented:

“Your recommendations from Northwestern tell us you were the top man to graduate in your year. They offer similar comments on the skill you showed in three years of obstetrical residency. We at Friendship can all understand your desire to spend additional time training in perinatology, but believe the facilities we can offer you to do your training on the job, as it were, will not be equaled anywhere in the country.”

Well, gosh. If someone wrote me a letter like that, offering me that kind of money, with profit sharing thrown in, I’d have a hard time turning it down. Ms. Warshawski, as an unparalleled thorn in the side of the police, with deductive capabilities well above the average, we would like you to be a private detective for twenty or thirty thousand a year, plus no health insurance, plus getting your face cut open and your apartment burglarized every now and then.

I turned to the material I’d taken from Humphries’s office. These documented the formal organization of the hospital. Humphries was head of Friendship V, with a salary and bonus guaranteed to equal two hundred thousand in any given year in which the hospital met its profit targets. Profit sharing kicked in for any amounts above plan. I pursed my lips in a silent whistle.

Friendship was a closely-held corporation. Most of its hospitals were in Sunbelt states where certificates of need were not required. In the Northeast and Midwest, most states required their approval before anyone-town, corporation, or anyone else-could start a new hospital or add a major new facility to an existing hospital. As a result, Friendship’s Schaumburg facility was its first in the Great Lakes area.

As the afternoon wore on, I picked up a miscellany of useful knowledge. Friendship V, the chain’s eighteenth hospital, was the fifth it had built from scratch. When it acquired an existing facility it apparently kept the original name.

Every hospital department had separate sales and profit goals set by an administrative committee made up of Humphries and the department heads. The national parent set overall goals for each facility. It was hard to keep reminding myself that sales in this context referred to patient care.

Humphries sent out periodic administrative memos to the departments telling them how to work within federal guidelines, which set average lengths of stay and care for different conditions. Where Medicare or Medicaid reimbursement was involved, it was important that they not exceed the guidelines, since the hospital paid the difference.

I wouldn’t have thought there’d be too much in the way of government-insured patients in the affluent northwest, but they apparently treated a fair number of older people. Humphries had detailed month-by-month statistics on who ran over and under the maximum reimbursed stay, with a note to one offender, heavily underscored, to “Please remember we are a for-profit institution.”

By the end of the afternoon I had made my laborious way through the stack of files and reports I’d brought with me. I’d marked a few questions for Lotty, acronyms and special jargon, but for the most part the documents were comprehensible corporate reports. They presented an approach to the practice of medicine that I personally found unappetizing, since it seemed to place the health of patients second to that of the organization. But Friendship didn’t seem involved in any direct malpractice, or any overt illegal fi-nances-such as billing the government for more expensive procedures than it was performing.

So Friendship was honest. That should please me in a world filled with corruption. Why wasn’t I happy? I’d gone on a fishing trip. I’d found Consuelo’s record for Lotty, even if it wasn’t a copy that could be used in court. What else had I expected? Blackmail by IckPiff that would make the hospital pay my ex-husband’s bill? Or did I just want a scapegoat for the frustrations and disasters of the last month?

I tried to shrug away a feint sense of depression, but it stayed with me as I packed up the papers and headed north to the Dortmunder.